PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
Segmental Aspects

Some of the articulators are fixed, it means passive (the alveolar ridge, the hard palate, the teeth), the other ones are movable, it means active during the articulation (the tongue, the lower jaw, the lips, the soft palate). The mechanism of pronunciation of speech sounds differs. It mainly depends on the position of the tongue and on the fact which part of the oral cavity is in contact with it. The contact is either full or partial creating complete or partial closure, narrowing or narrowing without friction (for further information on consonants, see Chapter 7).

Production of sounds is made when the airstream passes out of the lungs through the larynx to the lips. The airstream is modified by specific positions of the articulators. It can either make the vocal cords vibrate or the vocal cords can stay passive. According to the position of the soft palate, the stream of air passes out through the oral or the nasal cavity. The quality of the sounds produced matches the possible type of contact between the articulators. By Jones, articulation is “the movement of the vocal organs to produce speech sounds” (Jones, 2003, p. 35).

One of the crucial and most flexible and movable articulators is the tongue. Five parts of the tongue are recognised: tip, blade, front, back and root (Roach, 2009), as could also be seen in Figure 3 above. Specific groups of the speech sounds and their characteristics are presented depending on the fact what part of the tongue makes a contact with a specific articulator (e.g. alveolar consonants are pronounced when the tongue touches the alveolar ridge). 

The vocal cords (vocal folds, vocal chords) could vibrate, i.e. be active during articulation, which means that the voiced sounds are produced. In English and Slovak, all vowels are pronounced as voiced and some of the consonants are pronounced as voiced as well. The English voiced consonants are b d g v δ z ʒ ʤ l m n η r j w, in Slovak b d ď g v z ʒ dz ʤ h l ľ m n ň r j ĺ ŕ are voiced. The rest of the consonants produced without the vocal cords vibration are voiceless (i.e. unvoiced).  The English voiceless consonants are p t k f θ s ʃ h ʧ, the Slovak voiceless consonants are p t ť k f s ʃ c ʧ and ch, for which the symbol /x/ in the IPA is used.

The opening between the vocal cords is called glottis. “The vocal cords may be firmly closed to produce what is sometimes called a glottal stop” (Jones, 2003, p. 581). In IPA, the symbol used for the glottal stop is /ʔ/. This term is translated as ráz into Slovak. The following are the possible positions of the glottis and the vocal cords:

1. the glottis closed tightly – a glottal stop ʔ is made
2. opened glottis, the vocal cords not vibrating – breathing and voiceless consonants are produced
3. the vocal cords loosely together and not vibrating, the glottis opened slightly – production of the voiceless glottal fricative /h/
4. the vocal cords loosely together and vibrating, the glottis opened slightly – pronunciation of voiced sounds (Pavlík, 2000, p. 42)

The soft palate is a movable articulator. It can move up or down. When it is raised, the oral sounds are produced, when it is lowered, the nasal sounds are made. In English and Slovak, vowels are oral. They could be pronounced as slightly nasalised when the vowel is preceded or followed by a nasal consonant. The consonants /m n η/ are nasal in both languages. In American English, the so-called nasal twang is heard in pronunciation. It means that the airstream used for phonation passes out through both cavities, the oral as well as the nasal one.

According to Roach, the following seven articulators are the main ones: the pharynx, the velum, the hard palate, the alveolar ridge, the tongue, the teeth, the lips. But the organs like the larynx, the jaws and the cavities are also “a very important part of the equipment for making sounds, what is sometimes called vocal apparatus” (Roach, 2009, p. 10).

Presented below is a list including the most significant organs involved in the production of sounds. Included are also Slovak equivalent terms:

• Adam´s apple (ohryzok) – the front part of the larynx
• alveolar ridge (ďasno) – the bony hard area behind the top front teeth
• epiglottis (hrtanová príklopka) – a leaf-shaped flap in the throat preventing food from entering the windpipe (open during breathing when air goes into the larynx)
• glottis (štrbina medzi hlasivkami) – the opening between the vocal cords
• hard palate (tvrdé podnebie) – the hard part that forms the top of the mouth behind the front teeth, also known as a roof of the mouth
• larynx/ the voice box (hrtan) – the hollow muscular organ (in the top of the neck) forming an air passage to the lungs and holding the vocal cords
• mandible/ lower jaw (spodná čeľusť, sánka) – the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton, it holds the lower teeth in place
• nasal cavity (nosová dutina) – a large, air-filled space above and behind the nose in the middle of the face, it is the uppermost part of the respiratory system and provides the nasal passage for inhaled air from the nostrils to the nasopharynx and rest of the respiratory tract
• oral cavity (ústna dutina) – the cavity of the mouth
• pharyngeal cavity (hrdlová dutina) – connects the mouth and nasal passages with the esophagus
• pharynx (hltan) – part of the digestive system, the part of the throat behind the mouth and nasal cavity
• soft palate/ velum (mäkké podnebie) – the fleshy, flexible part towards the back of the roof of the mouth
• thyroid cartillage (štítna chrupavka) – forms Adam´s apple, placed on the top of the trachea. It is the largest and uppermost of nine cartillages within the larynx, it houses, protects and supports the vocal cords
• trachea/ windpipe (priedušnica) – a single vertical tube extending from the larynx to the bronchial tubes and conveying air to and from the lungs
• uvula (čapík) – the soft piece of flesh hanging down at the back of the mouth, it is attached to the rear of the soft palate
• vocal folds/ vocal cords (hlasivky) – two flaps of muscle located in the larynx behind the Adam´s apple, they are adjacent to each other at the front, but they are horizontally movable at the back. Their vibration causes voicing.
• (o)esophagus (pažerák) – a muscular passage connecting the mouth or pharynx with the stomach

(Roach, 2009)